The Heart of Life
by TurnMyGriefToGrace
Summary: A post season five finale one shot. MerDer-centric. "Leaning into the fear is part of life; giving thanks for every day, no matter the outcome. Of everything George taught them, that was the most important."


**Disclaimer: I only wish I owned it. Alas, I do not. I don't own the John Mayer song either.**

**I really don't want George to die, but unfortunately, I think we're in for a George funeral next season. This depresses the hell out of me, so I decided to have something good come of it for MerDer. Enjoy. **

_You know, it's nothing new  
Bad news never had good timing  
But, then your circle of friends  
Will defend the silver lining_

The day is dark, dreary, appropriately Seattle and somehow even more fitting for the funeral of a man taken before his time. The clouds don't let up; it's almost like the sun disappeared. And on days like this, it's hard to say when it would be a good time for it to come back. When to attempt to go on like everything is okay, when things are anything but fine.

Meredith is the one that has to put on the brave face. No one expects Alex to do so, not with the near loss of his wife's life. Izzie is in no condition to be the comforter. And Cristina tries to hold up her tough as nails exterior, though it's easy for Meredith to see right through it. They're all affected by the tragedy.

The four of them stand there after the burial service. Actually, Izzie sits in a wheelchair, per Alex's insistence that she not over-exert herself, especially not today. The combined physical and emotional toll would do her no good, not when her life is still so fragile. But there was no way she'd miss the funeral of her best friend, no matter how many tears she would come to shed at the end of the day. He was George, one of their own.

Nearly an hour passes before any of them move. Leaving him there means he's actually gone. Even the thought of life without George isn't something they can process. Not yet, anyway. Maybe time would heal some of the hurt, but not anytime soon.

"Let's go," Meredith says, so softly she wonders if the other three even heard her speak.

_Three others. It should be four_, she thinks. _And they shouldn't even be here._

Cristina gives a small nod, wiping away the tears pooled in her eyes. She looks at the hole in the ground once more before turning around to meet Owen, standing a little off in the distance with Derek.

Out of the corner of her eye, Meredith sees him. He looks handsome, standing there in his suit. The fact that he's been standing there patiently for a solid hour hasn't crossed her mind once. Derek knew it was a tough day, and would never think to rush her through it. Grieving was good, healthy. She needed to grieve. They all did.

After Alex and Izzie finally leave the gravesite, Meredith stands there by herself, just for a moment. She lets the tears fall freely as she bites her lip. "Goodbye, George," she whispers.

It takes all of her strength to walk over to Derek without falling to the ground a sobbing mess. Derek seems to sense it, so he wraps his arms around her when she reaches him. Meredith cries into his shoulder and hugs him back with everything she has.

"I know," he soothes, running his fingers up and down her back.

And he's not just saying that either. If anyone knows the pain of losing a loved one, it's Derek. He holds her for a while like that, thankful that she's letting him provide her with some sense of solace, even if it's just his touch. By the time she raises her head and looks at him, the shoulder of his coat is soaked through with her tears and her eyes are red rimmed and puffy.

He pulls a few tissues from his pocket and hands them to her. "Let's go home," he says, taking her hand.

Meredith's body has been on auto pilot since she woke up. Getting out of bed and putting on her black dress with the black pantyhose and shoes was a blur, as was the drive out to the church. The one Alex and Izzie got married in. The irony was enough to make her sick to her stomach. How much happened in the span of only a few days seemed almost unfathomable.

Knowing Derek was there helped though. He's been the only constant in her life lately, and she's realizing just how much she appreciates him. How nice it is to love and be loved when things are bleak beyond salvaging.

They make it home a little after noon. Most funeral masses had a brunch or something of the like afterward, but not this one. Somehow any form of celebration seemed wrong. And they knew George wouldn't have wanted such a thing. He didn't like being the center of attention; in fact, he probably would have thought his own funeral was too overstated.

Meredith takes her heels off before they get in the house. Getting dressed up wasn't really her idea of a good time, especially on the day she had to say goodbye to a member of her family. She shrugs off her coat and hangs it up next to Derek's.

Without another word, they walk up the steps toward their bedroom. The day off from work was perhaps the one good thing to come of today. Practicing medicine wasn't nearly as appealing as crawling back under the covers.

Derek pulls off his tie and throws it into the laundry basket. When he turns his head, his eyes catch hers for a second. He doesn't remember ever seeing her so sad, not even when her own mother died. She unzips her dress and lets it fall to the floor like it weighs more than she does. Usually she would glance back at him, smirking, daring him to watch as she got undressed. Today though, neither are in a particularly playful mood, the kind that starts with him making some sort of bantering sexual remark and ends with her naked and pinned beneath him.

He takes a pair of his sweatpants from the closet and drops them onto the bed, then grabs another. He knows how much she loves wearing his sweats. He'll catch her with his tee shirts on occasionally, claiming that they smell like him. _They smell Derek-y_, she'd said. When he asked what that meant, she shrugged and smiled. Whatever it meant, he knew it made her happy.

Meredith picks them up and puts them on. They hang low on her waist and she has to roll them a few times so she doesn't trip over them. She unhooks her bra then pulls her Dartmouth tee shirt over her head. Derek changes into his own sweats and shirt and helps her pull the covers down on the bed before they both climb in.

Derek pulls her close to him like always does. He's not sure what to say, so he doesn't say anything, hoping she's willing to speak.

She lets out a breath before running her palm over his cheek. "How did you deal with it?" she asks quietly. "I mean, after your dad…how did you?"

"I didn't," he confesses. "Not right away, anyway. I uh…it took time before I could—before I let myself think about it. And my mom and the girls. I guess I put on a brave face for them, tried to make things better. It didn't though. And when I finally let myself deal with it, it was hard."

Meredith sniffles a little, letting Derek wipe the tear that spills down her cheek. "I don't know how to deal with it. How am I gonna sit at the lunch table and it's only four—three—maybe four of us if Iz ever comes back to work? How do we clean out his locker and act like everything's back to normal? It's not supposed to be like this. We—there's always been five of us. And it was supposed to stay five," she sobs. "It's not five anymore and I don't know how to…"

Derek kisses her forehead and squeezes her a little tighter. "It's okay to be sad. And I know you like to keep it together for your friends," he says gently. "But you can be sad around me, Meredith. It's okay to be upset, to cry. I wish I would've let myself feel that way when my dad died. It's healthier that way. To let yourself feel things."

"To not be fine," Meredith offers. Her catchall phrase is lost on him anyway. He knows when she's fine-fine and Meredith-fine.

"To not be fine," he echoes definitively. He brushes some hair off her forehead and kisses her there. The feeling of his lips on her skin always calms her; Derek's been kissing her a lot lately.

"Were you ever…fine? After your dad died?" she asks.

Somehow, he's become the expert on dead family members, but it doesn't really faze him. Meredith is talking, coping. For someone who formerly dealt with heartache with a bottle of tequila and a string of one night stands, this is heaping amounts of progress.

"No," Derek replies honestly. "But it's…" he sighs. "It's okay. When things like this happen, it's never really the same afterward. Some of the pain goes away, but the loss is always there."

Meredith nods solemnly, like she already knew what his answer would be. She knows loss, too. Never before on this level, but she and loss used to be good friends. "That sucks," she whispers.

"I know it does," he appeases. "I wish I could make it better."

Another tear slips from her eye and he can feel her breaths becoming quicker against his neck. "Yeah. Me too."

Derek gently throws his leg over hers when the shaking sobs peel through her. "I know. I'm here," he says calmly.

Meredith knows she doesn't have to be the heroine around him, that she can cry without judgment, so she does. Her tears seep into his shirt and her pillow, and she begins to wonder how much a person can cry before their tear ducts simply refused to make more.

"He was supposed to be there," she says eventually. "For everything. For birthdays and holidays and—he was supposed to be Uncle George." The way she says it with such sadness makes Derek want to cry too.

"Yeah."

"He was good with kids," Meredith smiles. "He would have loved ours."

Derek mirrors her smile, small and somber. "He would have."

Futures. Babies. Their own little happily ever after. The way she speaks of such things can't help but warm his heart, despite the pain he, too, felt over George's death. But then he realizes that George O'Malley will never experience any of them. _That's what death was_, Derek thinks bitterly. Just as the children he and Meredith would have together would never know their grandfather.

Time always had a way of biting life in the ass. His father should be here. George should be here. The world was cruel that way, and learning to be grateful was often lesson learned too late. Time wasn't limitless; in fact, there was rarely enough of it to go around.

"We need to get married, Meredith," Derek says, his eyes peering into hers, bloodshot and bright green at the same time. Probably bad timing and maybe a little too non-sequitur but he can't not say it.

"What?" she asks.

He takes her hand and laces his fingers through hers. "I want us to get married. Marriage license, legal rights, all of that. And I know it's a piece of paper, but I…we don't have any rights over each other, Meredith. I don't want to gamble with that. I don't want to wake up one day and realize we ran out of time. That we never made time for the important stuff," he explains, hoping he doesn't sound like a frantic basket case. The last thing she needs is for him to spaz out, especially on a day like today.

She seems to get what he's saying and places a calming hand over his cheek. "I mean, God forbid something happens. That would be…we wouldn't be able to make medical decisions, decide care. And things like that are—I don't want some distant uncle having more power of attorney over you than I do," he says.

Meredith silences him with a kiss, leaning in and pressing her lips to his for a few seconds. "I get it," she whispers. "I want to, too."

"You do?"

"Of course," she nods. "Getting married has been on the to-do list for weeks, but then we gave away our wedding day and Izzie got sicker and George died and—" Meredith rattles off.

It's Derek's turn to stop her rambling with a kiss, so he does. Meredith closes her eyes when his lips touch hers and it's the most peaceful she's looked in days. "I know."

"We just haven't had the time," she sighs dejectedly.

Derek gives her a sympathetic smile. "I think this is something we need to make time for," he says softly. "We need this, Meredith."

"We'll call City Hall tonight and make an appointment," she whispers, running her fingers through his hair. "Right now, I just want to lay here with you. We're safe here."

"We're safe," he agrees. He snakes his hand under her shirt and traces his fingers over her spine, memorizing how each vertebrae feels under his fingertips. Delicate and perfect like the rest of her.

Meredith lets out a little yawn. The massive amounts of sorrow combined with the gloomy, overcast sky aren't helping with the whole staying awake thing, but she doesn't fight it off. There's little more she wants to do than relax under the covers with her husband (or sort-of husband, although they've felt married for months now).

"So I guess making plans is kind of stupid," she deduces, managing a slight laugh. Wet tears still linger on her eyelashes as she speaks but she makes no move to wipe them away.

"What do you mean?" Derek asks. Her inner pessimist is shining through, a side he actually finds charming, though he wished she give herself more credit sometimes. "What plans?"

Meredith shrugs half-heartedly. "I don't know. Houses, babies, stuff like that. I always thought married people had long discussions about those things but we really don't which is good I guess, considering what happened to George and I—" she babbles, swatting at an itch on her nose.

"Meredith," he interrupts. "That shouldn't stop us from making plans. Planning is good. It gives us something to work towards. We're not going to live in fear, okay?"

"Okay," she murmurs, savoring in the way his body feels pressed against hers. Derek was always so warm and comforting. Resting in his arms offers her more solace than anything else.

"So," he begins. "Are you gonna share your plans with me?" He says it with the faintest traces of a smirk, and Meredith realizes how much she's missed their playfulness over the past few weeks.

She bites her lip, putting on her serious contemplation face before speaking. "I uh…well, I mean, we can't live here forever. Once we have kids, there's gonna be nowhere to put them. We'll have even less privacy than we do now…"

"Then let's build a house," Derek says, as though it's the simplest explanation in the world.

Meredith looks at him curiously. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He cups her face gently and kisses her. "And then we can fill it with babies." When he pulls back to look at her, she's smiling. And it's not one of those fake _I'm-fine-stop-looking-at-me-like-that_ smiles, but the real kind.

"How many babies are we talking about?" she asks. It's one of those questions that should probably have a ballpark answer, even though she expects that his four sister, nine niece, five nephew background won't match her only child equivalent.

Derek shrugs noncommittally. In truth, he'd have a dozen babies with her, but somehow he knows saying that would be risky and start a rant about how she's the one with the uterus, and there's no way she'd be pushing that many babies out of her body. "I dunno. Up to you."

"Two. I think, maybe. I think we could handle two. Siblings are good and I always wanted my kids to have them because being an only child kind of sucked so, two? Is that—?"

"Two," he whispers, kissing her again. No matter how many times he kissed her, it was something he'd never tire of. "…is perfect."

The tears on her eyelashes are nearly gone now, and she smiles. "Maybe three. If we survive two."

"We'll survive," Derek says with an air of distinction that leaves her no room to refute. "We always do."

Leaning into the fear is part of life; giving thanks for every day, no matter the outcome. Of everything George taught them, that was the most important.

_Pain throws your heart to the ground  
Love turns the whole thing around  
No it won't all go the way it should  
But I know the heart of life is good_

**Hope you enjoyed it. Reviews make my day! :)**


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